


Shattering Expectations

by ShippingPirate



Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: Crying, F/M, Men Crying, Sad, Tears, The mayzuke is unrequited im sorry, Unresolved Angst, cry some more, dk west is. kind of an asshole i promise i like him, eve is there and shes mays therapist for a lil bit, lots and lots of tears, may and dk west are dating, may realizes she has made a fatal error far far too late, no im not going to resolve this please dont ask, o god i cried so much making this, this is what happens when you date your best friends brother and hes in love with you, well. mostly, zuke fuckin. leaves again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:42:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingPirate/pseuds/ShippingPirate
Summary: She's happy. That's all that matters to him. He can't screw anything up for them.He needs to leave.
Relationships: Mayday & Zuke (No Straight Roads), Mayday/DK West (No Straight Roads), Mayday/Zuke (No Straight Roads)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry

Hastily shoving all your things into a bag wasn’t that hard when you barely had any things to yourself. He and May shared practically everything, there was almost nothing he had that didn’t have a memory with her attached to it. He didn’t want to think about the heartache anymore. They were happy, and he was ruining that. He needed to leave, so they could be properly happy.

It hurt, so unbearably much, when they started dating. He’d been in love for years, and here comes his brother, snatching her up in the blink of an eye. He understood how West felt with Nadia, now. He wanted to be happy for them, but the pit in his chest keeps growing with every day he has to come home and listen to her gush about him. She’d been getting worried, recently. She still considered him her best friend, her buddy, and she didn’t like seeing him upset. Good for her that she wasn’t going to be seeing him at all, anymore. She didn’t need to worry.

As he leaves the bedroom with his sleeping needs in tow, he very specifically doesn’t look back to see her one last time. He doesn’t want to see her. He wants to hold on to the memories of the good times, when he leaves. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s going to go, but it’s definitely going to be out of the city. He knows her more than he knows himself, when she sees that he’s gone, she’s going to tear the city apart looking for him. It was funny, caring so much for someone that you’ve stepped all over the heart of. He doesn’t blame her, or West. Really, he doesn’t. He’d seen them together, they were happy, incredibly so. Who was he to take that from them?

He smiles slightly when Ellie squeaks, hopping up onto her back legs to paw at his pants, clearly begging for food. He puts his bag down for a moment and stops in the kitchen, grabbing her a piece of fish and handing it off, scratching over her scales. He was going to miss her, but taking Ellie would be too much, too selfish. He knows how much May loves her. He presses a kiss to her snout, and she squeaks again in joy, waddling off to wherever she goes during the day.

“Zuke..? What’re you doing so early…?” May yawns, coming out into the living room wrapped in her blankets. He almost freezes, but he takes a deep breath, relaxing his shoulders and rising from behind the counter.

“Hey, May. I’m just going to be going on a trip for a few weeks, some art retreat that Nadia invited me to. Wanted to get out of here early so I could sleep on the ride there. You can go back to bed.” He lies, sifting through the cupboards for some snacks. He wasn’t entirely lying, since he was leaving, but it was pretty clear to him that he wasn’t going to come back. The few weeks that May would be unaware would give him time to properly get out of the city, to somewhere she wouldn’t find him. Who knows, maybe she wouldn’t even notice that he was gone longer than he said.

“Oh...okay. See you later.” She muttered, obviously still half asleep. Who knows if she would even remember this conversation when she woke up later? Sleepily, she walks back into the bedroom, and he hears her clamber back into bed. Good. He puts what he grabbed into his bag, and stops for a moment, the glove on his hand catching his eye. As much as it would hurt to take it off, it would hurt more to leave and see it everyday, reminded of her. He pulls the old thing off, staring at it listlessly for a moment, before hiding it under the topmost book in his stack. She’d find it eventually, hopefully after he was already far gone. He needed some way to break it to her.

Looking around the house, he tries to think, making sure he doesn’t miss anything. The bedroom door opens again, and May comes back out, sleepy still, walking over to him and wrapping her arms around him, hugging him so tightly he felt like he was choked for air. Or maybe that was the feeling of her touching him, after so long. She’d stopped hugging him as much, when she started dating West. It was probably because West is so much bigger than he is, he can’t really compete with that level of comfort.

“I’ll miss you. You better come back soon.” She muttered, and his heart panged in his chest. One more, for her. Wrapping his arms around her, he holds her just as tight, pulling away as he feels the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her world is shattering around her.
> 
> Nothing feels complete anymore.

Two months. It had been two months since Zuke had left, and he wasn’t back yet. She missed him terribly, even as West kept telling her that he’ll be back eventually. He’d said a few weeks, hadn’t he? Why had it been so long, then? Something could’ve gone wrong, he could’ve gotten hurt, or worse. She needed to make sure that he was okay. Eve knew where he was, right? She was the one who invited him on that art retreat. She would know. Walking to Dream Fever from the sewers nearly took a few hours, since she got distracted in both Akusuka and Metro. Each time, she had turned to excitedly talk to Zuke, and each time, she had stopped when she realized that he wasn’t there. By the time she got to Dream Fever, she was nearly in tears from how much she missed him.

Evenfall gallery was large and intimidating. The last time she was here, she had gotten her ass beat trying to overthrow the area. It had worked, but she still went home with multiple bruises and probably a sprained ankle. The memory makes her stubbornly wipe her eyes, remembering how Zuke had taken care of her. Banging on the door, she impatiently waits, rubbing her hands up and down her arms and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

The door opens, and Eve steps out, frowning at her presence like it personally offended her. It probably did, May didn’t care. “Eve, I need your help. Where did you send Zuke? He’s been gone forever and I really miss him.” The words tumbled out of her mouth like a stream, and she started shaking, trying to resist the urge to cry.

“What do you mean, ‘Where did I send him’? I haven’t spoken to Zuke in months.” She leaned against the doorway of her gallery, glaring down at May. If looks could kill...jeez. May froze, her mind rushing to figure out what couldn’t possibly make sense. If...if Eve hadn’t spoken to him in a while, that meant that she couldn’t have invited him on that art retreat, which meant….that he’d lied.

Why would he lie?

Her knees tremble, and she wraps her arms around herself, heaving in wet gasps for air. What did she do that would make him leave? How could she be so terrible of a friend that she wouldn’t notice? Eve, watching this debacle, steps back, holding a hand to her mouth and simultaneously looking concerned and irate. She must take pity on her in some way, because she places a hand on her shoulder, bringing her into the gallery.

“Tell me what happened, Mayday.” She had walked them into some sort of lounge, closing and locking the door behind them. May curled into one of the couches, holding her knees to her chest and shaking.

“I...I don’t know. One day, two months ago, I woke up really early because I heard him moving around a lot in the house. He told me that he was going on an art trip that you had invited him to, and that he was going to be back in a few weeks. I….stupidly let him go. Next thing I know, it’s been _two months,_ and he’s _still gone!_ I don’t….I don’t know what I did. I miss him.” Eve settled on the chair across from her, crossing her ankles politely and folding her hands on her lap. She seemed to be thinking hard, not exactly focusing on May, but instead watching an area above her, probably puzzling out in her mind what she knew about May’s bandmate.

“I...apologize if this is crass, but didn’t you start dating that...bull-in-a-china-shop man around that time?” She asked, finally bringing her eyes to May. She had a pin-sharp look about her, like in the month and a half it took May to figure that something was wrong, she had already known everything, and had contingency plans for it all.

May started, putting her knees down and wringing her hands, getting a little red. She was still embarrassed about her relationship status, since the first time she told anyone outside of Zuke, they looked at her like she had grown three heads. She still didn’t fully understand why. “I, uh, I did, yeah. He’s...pretty nice once you get past all the bravado.” She smiled, thinking of all the warm hugs and endless praise he had given her. He was a pretty great boyfriend.

“Hm…” Eve sat there for a moment, watching her like she was wondering how to properly and politely rain on her parade. “Knowing Zuke, and seeing the way he acted around you when you had your….revolution, it’s most likely that he felt something for you, and when you began to date his brother, he left in order to not damage that new and tender relationship. He lied to spare your feelings, to make you think that he was going to come back when he was not.” Her words were harsh, but most damning of all, May could see their merit.

She knew Zuke more than anyone, more than he even knew himself, and that was something that he would do, in the blink of an eye, for her. He was always the kind of person that would put others’ feelings before his own, and not expect any thanks for it. It made her want to scream, to tear her hair out in frustration, both at herself for not noticing the way he acted around them, and at him, for being so fucking selfless. _Why?!_ It made her choke up, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks as she realized just how bad things had gotten, for him. How long had he been in love with her? How many years had she _ignored him?!_ Eve sat quietly across from her as she fought not to break down, flying from her seat and leaving the room, trying to get home as fast as possible.

By the time she had finally gotten home, she had calmed down enough to climb back into the sewers, plopping onto the couch and trying not to think too hard. Depressingly, she looked towards his side of the couch, his stack of books, his everything, and it clenched her heart horribly to see these things that were so incredibly _him,_ but not be able to _see him_ , not have him there in the mornings when she wakes up, breakfast already made, not having him to force her to clean the house, nagging about how it smelled, not _having him there._

Staring intensely in that direction, it brings her out of her reverie when she spots something black, half hanging out from underneath one of the books on his stack. She gets up, curious, and pulls it from where it was stuck, stopping as she realized that it was...his glove. The glove, the pair to hers, that she had gotten years ago when they first started performing together. Her legs wobbled as she stared at it, worn to death and beyond, just like she remembered seeing it, when he had it on his hand. He….he had left it. He really wasn’t coming back.

Her knees knocked together, and she fell, holding the glove to her chest and crying as she finally, _finally_ had the mental breakdown that she had been holding back for weeks. She sobbed and wailed, her distress falling on deaf ears, no one but Ellie caring to comfort her. The little alligator curled on the floor next to her, resting her head on her lap and looking up at her with big, caring eyes.

She cried until she ran herself dry, until her voice went hoarse from all the tears. She was still shaking, her eyes and nose stinging, looking awful. Ellie squeaked, rubbing her snout against the back of May’s hands, where she was still holding his glove against her chest. The movement gave her the strength she needed, and she pulled out her phone, texting West, knowing that her voice wouldn’t work.

_‘West.’_ She wrote, hands shaking something awful.

**‘Eey, missy!! So glad to hear from you, lah! Where you been all day?’** Always responding in a blink of the eye, that was something she was glad for. Even if all sense of feeling for him had drained out of her, leaving nothing but a cold, shriveled lump inside of her chest, where her heart was.

_‘I’m done, West.’_ She felt like a traitor, betraying her best friend by leaving him alone so often that he thought he had to leave to make her happy. Well he was gone, and she wasn’t fucking happy. _‘I'm sorry. This isn’t working out.’_ Now that she had an outsider’s perspective on her own life, she realized how selfish she was, taking what love she thought she could get with no regards for the people around her. 

She thought she had loved West, but now she realized that she had been going for the low hanging fruit, the people who complimented her and made her feel nice, not the people who actually cared about her. She was so enamored with herself that she hadn’t realized what she was truly missing until it was wrenched painfully away from her.

**‘So you figured it out, eh? Well, it was nice while it lasted. Wish you the best, missy! Dk West, out!!’** Of course. Of course he knew. It was his own brother, why wouldn’t he know? Had he been doing this out of a sick sense of revenge for what Zuke did to him in college?! The idea made her feel worse, throwing her phone down and pulling up her knees, throwing Ellie out of place. The little alligator whined in distress, putting her little feet onto May’s knees and trying to reach her face from where it was buried in them.

She felt like her whole world was crumbling around her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She didn’t even want to try, to uncover more buried secrets that could destroy her more than today alone already had. Getting up, she walked shakily to the bedroom, stumbling and catching herself on the furniture multiple times, her knees refusing to cooperate. His glove in hand, she curled into his bed, untouched since the day he left, and tried to bury herself in the last, waning touches of his familiar ocean smell, closing her eyes to the world around her.

Maybe if she dreamed hard enough, she could pretend that he was home, about to gripe at her for sleeping in his bed in the middle of the day.

It was all she had, anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i tho?


End file.
